Building on the success of its Global Pokers‘2023 Celebrity Challenge, Virtual Gaming Worlds (VGW) is expanding its partnership with the Olympics’ most decorated medalist, US swimmer Michael Phelps. The enhanced collaboration will see the champion swimmer and poker aficionado promote upcoming Global Poker challenges, tournaments, and promotions across the brand’s marketing channels.

Phelps, who won more medals during his career than any other Olympic athlete—28 total and 23 gold—said he’s excited about the Global Poker partnership.

The Phelps-Global Poker partner announcement follows VGW’s signing of Ryan Seacrest as a brand ambassador for its Chumba Casino property. Johnson said that the company expects a positive reaction to the Phelps announcement after finding success with the Seacrest-Chumba deal.

We are really pleased with how positively received the partnership with Ryan Seacrest at Chumba Casino was and are equally excited about working with Mr Phelps again in a greater capacity to the GP Celebrity Challenge.

It's been an exciting week for San Francisco-based gamer Andreas Kniep. In one day, he went from being in a burning car to landing a new job at his dream company. To top it off, a week later he found himself winning a WSOPC ring in North Carolina. A week out of the ordinary.

Last Friday, Andreas was driving home from a friend's wedding with his partner, who, to top it off, is six months pregnant. She was driving when they suddenly started noticing fuel issues and hearing very strange sounds. They eventually pulled over to the side of the highway and when they tried to lift the hood, they couldn't.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ZavrZ2aEbKU?si=L8jIdwzhHdwy77PP

It was too hot from the flames coming out of the engine. It was then that Andreas understood why the other drivers were frantically yelling at them to get out of the car. People with fire extinguishers quickly showed up to help them control the situation. That same day, Andreas got the news that he had landed a new job at Google. One of his main goals.

From despair over the burning car, he moved on to joy at the excellent news. And not only that: thanks to this work, Andreas had just become an American citizen.

Everything seemed to be straightening out after the almost traumatic episode. And there was still something else to come…

Kniep had the whole weekend to recover from the episodes he had experienced and on Monday he went to the Graton Resort and Casino to compete in Event #5 US$600 NLH 6-Max of the WSOPC. There, he prevailed against a field of 120 players to win his first WSOPC ring and a prize of US$15,907.

It will not be bad for him to fix the car. With this result, Andrea achieves his first title of this nature and accumulates a total of US$1,374,697 in accumulated live earnings.

Poker enthusiasts in the Czech Republic are eagerly awaiting the arrival of GGPoker, which was set to open in the country after securing a license in early 2023.

However, the long-awaited opening could be postponed indefinitely. In early 2023, GGPoker secured an online poker license in the Czech Republic, thanks to a partnership with King’s Casino. According to the Czech Ministry of Finance, GGPoker has either lost or relinquished its license.

The ministry’s list of licensed gambling operators, which is updated bi-monthly, included GGPoker.cz in June, but it is no longer listed in the August edition. Reasons for withdrawal the exact reasons why GGPoker has lost its Czech license remain uncertain.

However, the timeline suggests that legislative changes introduced earlier this year could be a key factor. These regulations included an increase in gambling tax. They also require online poker rooms to implement strict measures, such as self-exclusion options and a “panic button” that allows players to block themselves from all licensed poker rooms in the country.

Czech Republic create a Button panic for players, on the new Gambling act

These requirements are difficult to integrate and entail significant costs. GGPoker’s representative in the Czech Republic, King’s Slots, has the option to reapply for a license once it has met the new legal regulations. There is also the possibility that GGPoker will adapt its software for other markets and use this modified version to re-enter the Czech market.

The Four Rules of the Poker Kings tells the adventures of players Niall Farrell -scot- and David Dochert -scot- between the EPT Prague 2021 and the WSOP 2022.

The aim of the documentary is not to focus on their personal lives specifically (although sometimes it is inevitable), but to show what life is like for someone who lives within “the poker bubble.”

The documentary features cameos from several prominent personalities. Figures such as Daniel Negreanu, Sam Grafton, Dara O’Kearney, Fedor Holz and Elky Grospellier appear.

Far from the glamour and search for fascination that a film can have, this documentary tries to show a “true story.” “I'm just a guy from Scotland who plays poker,” says Farrell about his participation in it. And he asks himself: “Why would anyone want to see me going to play cards?” The answer, precisely, is that the aim is to show poker players as normal, genuine people who have simply chosen this activity for a living. In addition to life at the tables, the protagonists also show the other side of the life of the poker player.

The talks to convince skeptical parents about the profession they have chosen, the difficulties of leaving behind more conventional careers to dedicate themselves to gambling for a living, among many other things.

“It is a documentary about poker people, and not a documentary about poker” says Farrell in this regard. But we were quite lucky because we had some good deep runs and, in fact, we won.

The director had made it very clear that it had to be authentic, whether the result is good or bad. That seemed good to me because poker is essentially that. There are many ups and downs.

Yesterday with the opening of CEP and EPT Barcelona, the largest tournament in Europe and the second largest in the world. Poker lovers will be able to enjoy 26 days of competition with tournaments for all types of players and share a table with the biggest stars of world poker.

The CEP, the leading Spanish poker circuit, returned to Casino Barcelona to celebrate the third stage of the championship, the second to be held at the Barcelona casino after its successful run in March of this year.

For this occasion, the CEP Barcelona presents a programme that includes 11 tournaments ranging from €180 to €1,100 buy-in. As usual, the Main Event will be the king of the programme.

This will be played from August 20th to 26th with a buy-in of €500 (€428 + €22 + €50), 5 initial flights (Day 1A, Day 1B, Day 1C, Day 1D and Day 1E Turbo) and an initial stack of 30,000 chips.

A Main Event that will be the center of attention, since the goal is to surpass the 1,960 registrations reached in August of last year, a figure that crowned the Barcelona stage as the most crowded in the history of the leading circuit of Spanish poker.